


“Tru Braith Akanksha Veld: An Oddity Even Among Jedi”

by Polgarawolf



Series: Star Wars: You Became to Me [46]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Attempted Murder, Chosen One, Civil War, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hermaphroditic metamorph, Infatuation, Jedi (sacrificial ethics), Love-sickness, M/M, Manipulations, Near-human, Obi-Wan Kenobi equals unrequited love (unless you're Anakin Skywalker), Rapid regeneration, Secrets, Sith machinations, Sith'ari, Slavery, Spies & Secret Agents, Trauma, Unrequited Love, War, near-drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-15
Updated: 2008-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:06:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is sixty random but essentially chronological moments from the life of Teevan Jedi Knight Tru Braith Akanksha Veld, Ferus Olin’s closest friend (while Ferus was still in the Jedi Order) and an agemate of Anakin Skywalker’s. There is an actual story here – one small thread among the vast woven tapestry of life that is the living history of the galaxy, stretched out and twisted, knotted into the whole, curled down among the roots of time, connecting various moments together – but one must read between the lines to capture it. It is not precisely the truth, for the subtle story of these moments is sketched out here in words, and, in the sin of writing down a life, it inevitably changes the shape of things. But it is nevertheless a form of truth. (From a certain point of view . . . )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “Tru Braith Akanksha Veld: An Oddity Even Among Jedi”

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Notes: 1.)** Again, this is compatible with my SW AU series **_You Became to Me_** , including my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, if you squint at a couple of things sideways and view a few others solely through the lens of Tru’s (admittedly not always unbiased) eyes. **2.)** Although this is technically modeled on a prompt set that I borrowed from somewhere on the LJ (I don’t recall from where anymore, though if someone would like to set the record straight, I’ll add the info for the community in question here in my notes), it’s not really meant to function as a response to the challenge associated with that set. I just used the specific prompts to give me a reason to string together a backstory of sorts for Tru. **3.)** Readers interested in knowing who the physical models are for EU characters, like Tru, Ferus, Darra, Master Ry-Gaul, and etc., or for original characters, like Jedi Knight Nemaria Tennyai, for that matter, should please consult the latest versions of my posted lists of cast original and EU characters and for handmaid(en)s and other important Nabooian characters, which are all available on my LJ! For clarity's sake, though, please know that I picture a very androgynous (y'all will understand why I'm specifiying that, as you read the story), silver-eyed version of Keanu Reeves and also a somewhat androgynous, silver-eyed version of Katie Leung (again, y'all will understand why I'm specifiying that, as you read the story) as Tru Veld, a young Julia Stiles as Darra Thel-Thanis, and Robert Pattinson (with appropriate streaky hair) as Ferus Olin. Please note that characters who may be alluded to but not referenced by name or only mentioned in passing (minor original characters and certain family members of original or EU characters, for example) are considered too minor to be cast at this time, and that readers should feel free to imagine them howsoever they wish (within reason, given their genetic backgrounds)! **4.)** Readers should _**please**_ note that Tru’s identity as a (fully functional by means of controllable gender transmutation) hermaphroditic Teevan is mostly an original invention, as the creator of this particular EU character (Jude Watson) presents Tru as a Teevan but doesn’t elaborate much on what it might mean to be a Teevan and, thus, near-human. The notion that there are five distinctly different gender types for Teevans (and that Tru might be a hermaphrodite gifted with rapid regeneration) is solely my own idea, conceived mainly as a way to justify the “near” in near-human and to try to explain why Teevans might have more cartilage and fewer bones in their bodies than human norms do. **5.)** Ferus pretty much has Tru and Darra spying on Obi-Wan from the moment he first becomes aware of him and (even if s/he makes some questionable decisions sometimes) Tru is anything but unobservant or an idiot (hence, most of the relationship labels on this story). **5.)** Speaking of relationships, Tru’s relationship with Ferus Olin is . . . complex, complicated by the fact that the two never speak openly of the true depth of their emotions and attachment for each other prior to Ferus being cast out of the Order.
> 
>  **Story Notes:** **1.)** Since this is part of a larger on-going AU series that in some respects fairly closely mirrors or follows events of canon (up to a certain point, anyway), readers should please keep in mind that certain characters and events from the prequel movies/novelizations of the films and even events/places/people referenced in the EU or Expanded Universe may be mentioned or alluded to in this story. If anyone has any questions about whether someone or something is AU, canon, or EU canon, please feel free to ask! **2.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of the character study pieces in the **_You Became to Me_** series (and indeed most of my stories, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters. The year is going to be accurate, but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!

**"Tru Braith Akanksha Veld: An Oddity Even Among Jedi"**

 

　

**01.) Different:** Tru is a Teevan (not one of their mutated copper-skinned cousins from the moon Kamelyon), with all that implies – there are five distinct genders common to their particular kind of near-human (fixed fertile male; fixed fertile female; fixed infertile androgyne, with their odd and often distinctly different mix of male and female characteristics; unfixed and fertile in both sexes hermaphroditic metamorphs, able to phase from male to female and back again, practically at will, the transition from one gender to the other generally taking a few weeks – unless one is also a Jedi, in which case certain healing-type trances can accelerate the process to only a few hours – and usually not effected or accidentally triggered by anything except extreme stress/duress or illness involving extremely high or low temperatures, the process being a matter of will rather than randomness; and seemingly unfixed, fertile in both sexes hermaphroditic metamorphs who, usually at the age of full maturity or else, in extremely rare cases, at the onset of middle age, will find that they’ve settled into a fixed gender, after which they usually will not be able to phase to another gender again, irregardless of earlier abilities, though if they are still bodily able they will no longer be able to control or direct the process at all consciously), and almost all Teevans have an exceedingly rapid rate of regeneration, meaning that it can be extremely difficult to incapacitate or kill a Teevan – and Tru is also a fertile hermaphroditic metamorph who’s always known that the condition (or ability, as Tru prefers to think of it) will remain unfixed, with all that implies, and the confluence of these two facts have caused no end of minor problems and annoyances, especially given that they’ve made him/her shuffle from the boys’ to the girls’ dorms and contrariwise (not to mention having to go back again, afterwards) with every single transition; yet, for all of that (for all that it marks Tru out as spectacularly different than the majority of those around her/him), it’s not something Tru would be willing to give up for anything in the whole wide universe, for it’s also brought a wealth of information and sensation and understanding that most fixed single-sexed individuals lack, helping in all manner of things, not the least of which include interpersonal relationships.

 **02.) First:** The first time Tru met Ferus Olin, he (for he was technically more he than she, at the time) was in the midst of a transition from female to male, and the little boy with the huge gray eyes and the dark hair streaked with gold looked at him oddly, frowned a little, and then guilelessly asked, "Why are you wearing two faces?" to which a wincing Tru (anticipating a horrified flinching away, as had been the norm with basically all of the humans and near-humans in and around his age, in the Temple crèche) haltingly explained about being a Teevan and a metamorph, at which point Ferus shocked him and won his eternal friendship by getting an utterly fascinated look on his face and eagerly demanding, "Really? That sounds dead useful! I don’t suppose you can teach me to do that, can you?" his pragmatic shrug and lingering obvious interest (not just in Tru’s ability to transition from male and female and vice versa but in _Tru_ , as an individual), when Tru had to admit that it was a talent innate to certain Teevans, making Tru feel warmed through all the way down to his toes.

 **03.) Wing:** Darra is the one who takes Tru not only in hand but under wing, when she’s shuttled to the girls’ dorms, her sympathy and genuine interest in Tru (not wariness, not polite tolerance of the oddity suddenly in the midst of her orderly dormer, not puerile curiosity over the idea of being a gender metamorph like the particular kind of Teevan Tru is) winning her over, even though she’s been thoroughly prepared, from the reaction of the boys as she was undergoing the transition from male to female, to be regarded as a freak (strange even to Force-sensitives, apparently), and reassuring her that there are, after all, some members of the Order her age who know what it means to have open minds and generous spirits and who are capable of accepting the variety of sentient life in the galaxy, as true Jedi Bendu are meant to be.

 **04.) Useful:** There are certain benefits to being Teevan, as if to make up for the indignities that accompany such things as the ability to transition from one gender to another (in a galaxy where most beings are never more than one gender, following birth), with one of them being amazing flexibility, due to a preponderance of flexile, limber cartilage where brittle, unbendable bone generally is found, in most near-humans and all human norms, and an even more useful one being an almost eerie ability to rapidly regenerate damaged tissue (with most Teevan scientists agreeing that the effect is tied in to the process by which their bodies rapidly progress through the steps by which the transition from male to female and vice versa occurs, though, oddly enough, it’s something all Teevans possess, irregardless of their type/gender, even the fixed males and fixed females who never transition from one gender to another and back again).

 **05.) Small:** Sometimes it surprises her, how empty the Coruscanti Temple seems, how small the various classes of agemates in the crèche are, how many humans and near-humans there seem to be among the Jedi and initiates, compared to those who are merely humanoid or essentially wholly alien to those who are (or very nearly are) human, and she has to wonder, sometimes, whether or not all of those so-called reforms, after Ruusan, were really all that good of an idea, for the Order’s long-term well-being . . . and whether or not it’s a bad thing that many species who age differently from most human norms and near-humans refuse to allow their children to be taken to the Temple for training, since Ruusan.

 **06.) Sensitive:** Many Teevans (and their cousins from Kamelyon as well) are sensitive to the flows of the Force, but few are ever actually trained, unless they are tremendously strong, mostly due to the fact that Revan and his cousin, the so-called Jedi Exile, were both Teevan (Revan actually being not just a metamorph but one of their mutated cousins, able to change form entirely at will), given that the Order as a whole, though possessing a long memory, tends to be highly selective about those things it recalls, especially when that selectivity allows it to continue to place the majority of the blame for certain past tragedies upon others, rather than accepting any for itself.

 **07.) Different:** There is something . . . different about Ferus Olin, special, even among a group of individuals who are all, indubitably, different and special, when compared to the vast majority of sentient beings in the galaxy, and Tru feels undeniably drawn to him from the very beginning, as if the Force desires for them to be close, so when Ferus meets and promptly becomes obsessed with a Padawan learner by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Tru resolves to do everything possible to help Ferus figure out whatever it is that draws him to the (then teenaged) apprentice, hoping that, in the process, illumination as to the reason behind a similar pull between her and Ferus might finally become clear.

 **08.) Dance:** It takes longer than she’d like, for her to arrange a meeting with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and, afterwards, she’s not sure if she should be angry or relieved by her reaction to the young man, given that her response is essentially the same kind of helpless fascination that Ferus feels for the Padawan, to such a level that she feels as if she surely knows, now, what it feels like to be hypnotized by the dance of light off of a prism swung mesmerically in front of her face.

 **09.) Research:** Once she has met Obi-Wan for herself, it takes very little to convince her that Ferus is right and the Padawan is something so special that it would be worth any punishment to discover just how far that specialness extends (the young man practically _glows_ with the Force, for pity’s sake! Not even Yoda, the Grand Master himself, resonates with such a clear energy signature, the whole of him seemingly burning bright and pure with the Force’s power), and so she helps Ferus slice the library computers for his research, and, when he comes to her with the name "Chosen One" on his lips, she is the first to nod understanding and agreement.

 **10.) Error:** Ferus seems to think that the notion that the Chosen One is meant to bring balance to the Force is a misunderstanding caused by an ancient mistranslation of a phrase in a language even older than Old Corellian that he swears means not to balance but rather to heal, to cleanse, even, to make well, as if in the sense of purging something of impurities or flaws/illness (he’s spoken of his theory at great length, flipping through images in data files – copies from artifacts and records centuries to millennia to tens of thousands of years of age, accessing information won largely by Tru’s efforts, at Ferus’ insistence, given that nearly all references dealing with the so-called Chosen One are heavily restricted and encrypted, meant for the eyes of none below the rank of Master without sufficient permission to obtain passwords and codes to permit viewing – excitedly seeking out the oldest of the recorded prophecies and tales of prophecies and analyzing the nuances of the original languages until even Tru has to admit that _balance_ sounds like an error in translation, too, either accidental by way of ignorance/carelessness or deliberately made, in order to muddy the waters and make the prophesied one seem less ominous. After all, how much more disturbing is it to consider that the whole of the Force might be ill or corrupted than to simply think of it as being a bit out of balance, because of individuals like Dark Jedi or even Sith, who could at least possibly be killed or easily dealt with?) and, the longer he listens to Ferus and his theories and the more he finds out about Obi-Wan and gets to know the Padawan, the greater his suspicions grow that there is (that there must be!) some kind of plot afoot, to try to keep Obi-Wan from fulfilling his destiny and true full potential.

 **11.) Awkward:** Once beyond a certain age, unless a healing trance is used to speed the process up, there are always a couple of awkward days at the end of a phase when either his flat chest and hips are swelling outwards and his lower body is shifting, genitalia retracting into the body, melting away, being absorbed and reformed into something else, something different, or when her hips are shifting in such a way as to lose their feminine curves, breasts reabsorbing into the chest, fat cells morphing back into bands of muscle, the mound between her legs shifting backwards, the orifice becoming pendulous, with lips and tender nodule melting together, extending downwards, forming a muscular shaft, making Tru’s body ache slightly, itch subtly, in odd places, causing difficulty in housing choice at the Temple; thus, by the time Tru’s reached the age of twelve and had to suffer through five arguments about whether or not the girls’ or boy’s dormitory made more sense, on certain days, the idea of being apprenticed and no longer having to change rooms just because of a transition has begun to hold quite a lot of appeal.

 **12.) Askance:** It bothers her, a little, that her two forms are so distinctly different – the male form finer-boned, relatively tall and lithe, all long clean lines and hardened spareness, with an almost beauteous face all of chiseled planes and angles; the female small and round-faced, cheeks high and full and set in a face that is utterly unremarkable, body tiny but rounded all over, in a way that makes certain other beings look at her with hunger in their eyes and not care that her face is as plain as plain can be – because she knows that others (even in a place like the Temple, where it should not matter what a being looks like, so long as he or she or it is strong in the Force) look at her askance more than they would, otherwise, trying to figure out how it can be that a body so petite, with so many curves, can unfold into a tall and slim stranger, her two forms not even as alike as a brother and sister by blood might be in a family with two human norm children, her male form prettier, in some ways, than her female.

 **13.) Apart:** Rapid regeneration is, in a way, both a blessing and a curse – a blessing in that it both protects from certain dangers and imparts a certain depth of knowledge of the self that is less tied up with the body than with the mind/spirit; a curse in that it is one more truly strange thing to discomfit others and put them on the defensive because of that discomfort, something that sets him apart and marks him as different, as other, than the rest of his peers, in the Temple – but overall Tru rather imagines that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, seeing as how he is, after all, in training to be a Jedi Knight, and Jedi don’t precisely live lives of safety or comfort.

 **14.) Ease:** Something about hand to hand combat appeals, even more than the traditional hum and shine of a ’saber (though she would never be so foolish as to admit this where another Jedi or even another youngling might hear her), and she excels easily at several forms of unarmed combat, martial arts especially, her highly flexible body bending and twisting and whipping its way through even the most difficult of practice katas with graceful ease.

 **15.) Ability:** He half assumes he’ll be taken to apprentice by someone like Master Tholme – one of the Order’s information brokers, as he’s usually delicately referred to, to avoid simply bluntly naming him a spy (and sometimes assassin) – given his ability to shift from male to female and contrariwise, so he’s surprised, at first, that it’s Master Ry-Gaul who seems interested in him . . . at least until he witnesses the man’s ability to believable transform from a grey-eyed, white-haired old man to his vibrantly green-eyed, black-haired true appearance and then back again, and discovers that the man was the Padawan of the same Master who trained Tholme, taken to apprentice less than six months after Tholme’s Knighting, at the tender age of twenty-two.

 **16.) Logic:** There’s a logic to mechanics and the sciences that appeal to her – she’s good with numbers, good at visualizing how things fit together (or _should_ fit together, to work properly) to form a greater whole – and besides, being able to slice computers is pretty much a prerequisite, for an information broker, so she focuses a lot of her time and attention on the sciences and gives less to the arts, trusting her Master will say or do something to adjust/correct her schedule if he believes the lack will in any way damage her ability to eventually carry out successful missions.

 **17.) Fear:** It is very hard to kill a Teevan – the gift of rapid regeneration means that Teevans heal so quickly that scars begin to form and fade away to nothingness, the keloid tissue reabsorbing into the body, even before the blood is even dry, and any part of the body that may be lost will (so long as its loss is, of course, not immediately fatal), eventually, grow back again. Enemies often claim that Teevans feel no pain, but (unfortunately) this simply isn’t true. It merely appears that way to enemies because in battle a Teevan will willingly absorb a dangerous blow that almost any other being would have to parry or dodge or deflect in order to preserve the body’s life, and, while the enemy’s weapon is still buried in the Teevan’s flesh, that Teevan can and will cut the life out of that enemy before walking on to find another enemy to engage (and then another, and another, until there are no more enemies left standing on the field), the Teevan’s own grievous wound either already healing or already healed. Teevans feel pain, though, just like any other embodied being. Teevan women will faint in childbirth if the flesh torn badly enough or enough of the body’s stores of energy are used to at least temporarily sap her of vitality. If a Teevan’s hand is placed in a fire, the agony will burn as hot inside that Teevan’s body and brain as with any other sentient being wired to experience such heat as pain. Teevan’s feel pain: what Teevans don’t feel is fear. Or rather, Teevans have long since learned how to separate pain and fear. To other beings, pain means that their lives are in danger; thus, to preserve themselves, they must have the reflex to avoid that pain by any means they can. To a Teevan, though, pain means that the danger is small. Death comes to Teevans only in ways that are beyond pain: the slow crumbling of old age into eventual senility or dementia and death; the cold hard breath of drowning; the loss of all feeling when the body is severed from the head. A mere cut or burn or stab or broken bone means only that some vigor will be sapped as the body quickly heals; it means that foods high in protein will be called for, to replenish the body’s stores, when the battle has ended and the body is once again whole. And the worst fear that others dread (the fear of dismemberment, of losing toes or fingers, hands or feet, ears or nose or eyes or genitals), well, Teevans laugh at that. After all, why is it the greatest concern of those other beings, those who are not Teevan? It is, of course, because they’ve come to think of their present shape as their true selves, and they believe that, if they lose those specific shapes, then they will lose those selves, and so become monstrous and alien in their own eyes. But Teevans have long since learned that the present shape of a being is not that person’s true self at all. A Teevan can have many different shapes and still be the being that person has always been. The self is not the body’s shape. One can have any shape at all and still be who that person is. Teevans have no dread of losing limbs that will only, eventually, grow back again. The self cannot be distorted or destroyed through subtraction any more than it can be through the morphing of one gender to the next and back again (or from one face to another and another and another, as is the case with their cousins from Kamelyon) – which should, by all rights, make someone like Tru doubly important to the Jedi Order, or so it surely seems to Tru, anyway . . . and so it will take many years before Tru will finally fully understand why the Order should have waited so long to accept another Teevan among its ranks, considering how Teevans almost seem to be made, tailor-ordered, for the life of warrior defenders such as the Jedi.

 **18.) Practice:** In practice one day, he doesn’t quite duck fast enough, and Ferus watches in a mixture of awe and sickened horror as a bleeding burn all along the right side of his head where the mangled remains of his ear hangs by ragged tatters of singed and bloody flesh (from a direct hit from Ferus’ practice ’saber) twitches, ripples, blackened skin sloughing off in strips, blood gushing for only a few moments from the raw open wound beneath before new pink fragile skin forms, stretching across the wound, the place where his ear should be pushing outwards, forming ridged whorls that lengthen, broaden, the ear reforming itself, Ferus’ breathing ragged, as he watches (gasping, as if he’d been running longer and faster than he should or as if . . . as if . . . ), hazel eyes darkly dilated, huge, a flush rising up his throat to his face as he reaches out trembling fingers, calloused pads rasping not quite painfully across the new skin, already losing its pink newness, the caress making Tru flinch, startled, before he leans instinctively into the touch, letting his friend explore the already healed wound, less than five minutes having passed since Tru’s failure to either parry or dodge the blow completely, his smile shaky, sickly, as he tells the still wildly staring boy, "You didn’t hurt me – can’t hurt me – see? It’s like I’ve been telling you. Rapid regenerate. All Teevens are. I’m no exception. So don’t worry about it. I’m fine," body automatically trying to shy back, expecting a blow, when Ferus raises a hand, not sure how to react as he reaches out to clasp Tru’s shoulder, pulling him close, _close_ , Ferus’ scalding hot breath washing over Tru’s new ear, lips soft, _soft_ , as Ferus brushes a gentle kiss across the center of what used to be a blistered mess of a wound.

 **19.) Breathe:** Perhaps Tru’s just better at self-deception than most, but for whatever reason he truly hadn’t known he was in love with Ferus – not fascinated with him, not in awe of him, not interested in him, but actually truly, deeply in love with him – until that moment in the sparring hall, Ferus’ hand on his shoulder, his lips against Tru’s so recently damaged and swiftly reformed ear, knowledge lighting him up like a bolt of lightning even as Ferus pulls back just enough to whisper, "I’m still so sorry for hitting you. I always believed you, but I never would’ve wanted to hurt you, Tru. I never want to cause you pain," his heart thundering so hard in his chest that he aches, ribs feeling bruised, unable to breathe in deep around the pain.

 **20.) Casual:** Ferus . . . believes in sharing himself with practically everyone who takes such an interest in him, avoiding forming an inappropriate attachment with any one being by casually becoming pillow friends with many instead of choosing just one person to be intimate with, his sense of generosity and openness such that he hardly ever even puts anyone off, much less turns anyone who approaches him away (unless it would cause trouble or the interest being shown in him is entirely inappropriate for some reason); yet, though she knows that Ferus would not refuse her (or him, for that matter. Hell, Ferus is so curious he’d probably want Tru even during that awkward in between phase, when still transitioning and not using a healing-type trance to accelerate the process), she doesn’t want to be just another casual lay for Ferus: since she also knows that, if he should ever attempt to initiate something, she’ll never be able to avoid crossing the line (her feelings for him are such that she’s already dangerously close to forbidden territory. If she doesn’t act on her feelings, though, then maybe she can still avoid the trap of inappropriate attachment . . . or so she has to hope, anyway, since she honestly doesn’t know what else she can do), she’s extremely careful to maintain at least _some_ distance between them, whenever possible, and to shy away from too much (too intimate) contact, even though Ferus occasionally looks at her with something almost like pain in the back of his eyes, when she moves away from him.

 **21.) Glamour:** Darra is just as interested in and mesmerized by Ferus as Tru is – more so, in some ways, given that she does not bother to hide her fascination overly much – but there is a strange sense of shallowness to the girl’s obsession, as if that interest doesn’t penetrate far enough to involve the heart and the mind as well as the flesh, and Tru can’t help but wonder, sometimes, if Darra might not have been caught up in some kind of glamour that never quite wore off again, given her obvious (dangerous) level of attachment to Ferus.

 **22.) Depth:** It’s increasingly difficult, to restrain herself from revealing either the depth of her attachment to Ferus or her increasing certainty that there is something seriously amiss with the galaxy – and not just the Republic, but the Order, too – and that Ferus is the one meant to help Obi-Wan bring about proper redress for all such wrongness (her first instinct in all things is to turn to Ferus, to trust in him, to obey and support, and, yes, dammit, even to love him. And her sureness as to Obi-Wan’s status is such that she often finds herself literally biting her tongue, shaking with the difficulty of suppressing words that would name the Padawan truly and fully aright, hands doubled over into fists so tight that the skin on her palms is constantly being scored and healed of bloody half-moon punctures from her fingernails), but she stays the course and she hides both herself and her knowledge away, even more sure that revealing either would do little but remove her from the picture and render her unable to do anything to help, when the time finally comes for change.

 **23.) Trust:** Darra Thel-Tanis truly is a remarkable girl – lovely in every sense of the word, with hair a striking mix of darkly golden brown and an almost russet chestnut, glinting with brighter hints of polished amber and raw honey when held up to the sun (from days when she was a child and still palely golden blonde) and highlighted with ruddy streaks of strawberry blonde, heavy and shining as spun silk, milky pale skin prone to goldening to a perfectly even tan in the sun, and warm, rusty brown eyes, their darkness flecked with hints of amber gold, her preciously rounded heart-shaped face somehow conveying a sense both of fragility and flushed good health, delicate and blooming as a flower, thin but firmly rounded, muscled limbs seemingly longer than they are, lines clean and simple and heartbreakingly beautiful, heart warm and full and brimming in wide open eyes, spirit shining like a star through that pale golden flesh, generous and open and full of empathy and the will to do good, to help others, to provide safety and security and peace and fairness for all – and he genuinely does like her, respect her, honor her . . . yet, that cannot keep him from looking on in bitterness or from feeling flashes of envious hatred, on seeing her with Ferus, touches soft and speaking of an intimacy he cannot trust himself to seek to receive.

 **24.) Strange:** The things that Ferus can see are so strange and alien to her that they frighten her, more often than not; sometimes, though, even she can sense when something truly horrible is about to happen or is in danger of happening, and those are the times that terrify her the most, for they are also the times that the High Council seems dead set on sending others (usually Obi-Wan Kenobi and his feckless Master) out to their doom.

 **25.) Sanity:** There are days when he seriously wonders about Qui-Gon Jinn’s sanity, and the Knight’s insistent report to the High Council that he’s found the prophesied Chosen One who’ll bring balance to the Force in the person of a not quite ten-year-old former slave from Tatooine when the man’s been Master to Obi-Wan for nearly twelve years and should damn well know better, if anyone does, definitely counts as one of those days.

 **26.) Grief:** It isn’t just shock that makes the blood drain from Ferus Olin’s face, at the news that Obi-Wan has been Knighted and, in accordance with his Master’s dying order, taken on Anakin Skywalker as an apprentice (though in Tru’s mind, that’s definitely a huge and supremely ugly surprise. _Everyone’s_ been expecting Obi-Wan to eventually speak for Ferus – there’ve been no promises made or discussion between the two on the matter, true enough, but Ferus is closer to Obi-Wan than any other youngling in the Temple and it is for Ferus’ sake alone that Obi-Wan has so often volunteered for training duty with the initiates, so he can spar with Ferus – and this sudden and wholly unexpected taking of a Padawan who’s really too young to be made an apprentice and yet far too old to be taken in by the crèche as an initiate is like being hit with an unexpected blow, painful and breath-stealing): no, it’s grief, at what’s been stolen from him, and rage, over the taking, that makes Ferus stumble gracelessly and fall to his knees, expression so terrible that Tru has to look away, unable to look at him any longer, knowing there’s nothing she can do to truly help . . . and nothing anyone can ever do to fix things enough to make this right.

 **27.) Shock:** Very little attention was paid to Skywalker, in the brief period of time he was at the Temple, after that madman Jinn and Obi-Wan managed to get the young Queen of Naboo and her retinue safely to Coruscant and before they were all sent back to Naboo to escort Amidala home again – frankly, Qui-Gon Jinn’s ravings about the boy being the Chosen One were so insane and the whole Naboo situation (what with the sudden ousting of Chancellor Valorum and all) so explosive and precarious, even without factoring in the possibility of a Sith Lord’s meddling, that one undersized little ragamuffin former slave in badly laundered dirt- and sand-colored clothes couldn’t even begin to compete for attention – and what little anyone saw of him seemed to lead to the conclusion that the boy was powerful enough that he could’ve made a strong Jedi, if only he’d been brought to the Temple about nine years earlier, but that he was far and away too old and too full of fear and the need to please others to make any kind of proper Jedi now and that he’d be lucky if Queen Amidala took pity on him and agreed to see to the rest of his raising, on Naboo (granted she and Naboo survived the Trade Federation, that is), since it would of course be impossible to pay to send him back to Tatooine, given its affiliation with the Hutts and their longstanding animosity towards Jedi; thus, it’s that much more of a shock to discover that the High Council seems to have changed its collective mind about training him and that Obi-Wan is being stuck with that responsibility, even though he’s only just been Knighted.

 **28.) Storm:** Anakin Skywalker is . . . nothing like she’s been expecting, small and baked thin and golden brown by the harsh double suns of Tatooine, vividly pale blue eyes far too old and weary for his age, small body blazing with barely leashed power, excess energy boiling up out of him constantly at odd, random moments (usually in some feat of strength that should be impossible for one who hasn’t been Knighted long enough ago to be well on the way to Mastery already), disturbing the Force and the Temple itself with a sense like a storm, all of that barely controlled violent energy like a wind, spiraling up to unrestrained howls of fury and moaning thinly like the muted roar of a hurricane or a tornado when heard through sheltering thick stone walls, gentling only in Obi-Wan’s presence, something about him muting the whistling shrieks and booming roars to gentle whispering breezes, Obi-Wan providing a sense of focus that calms and directs and channels all of that wildness into far more constructive directions.

 **29.) Danger:** Ferus undeniably hates Anakin Skywalker with a frightening passion – there are a wealth of emotions Jedi are not supposed to feel, and hatred (and the accompanying anger) is quite possibly foremost among them, for very good reasons (chief among them being that hatred all but inevitably leads to the Dark Side and that it destroys the kind of fine control needed to properly use a wealth of Force abilities) – and she seriously worries about the kind of danger such negative emotions could so very easily cause.

 **30.) Accident:** It’s a perfectly innocent accident, so far as she knows – Ferus wasn’t even there when the swimming contest began and was heading for one of the meditation pools at the far end of the chamber when the other initiates were trying to goad Anakin into joining them at a set of water sprints meant to test their swimming ability and stamina, and, when the boy never surfaced after recklessly diving into the water of one of the pools meant for more advanced swimmers, Ferus was the first one to have the sense to start asking the other swimmers if anyone had seen the boy or if anyone even knew if the desert-raised youngling could actually swim – but when Obi-Wan comes in at a flat out run (just a blur as he flies past and cuts cleanly into the water) and drags the blue-lipped and clearly not breathing boy out of the water to pump the liquid out of his lungs and breathe air back into him again, Ferus starts acting very strangely, and the murderous look that the usually quite gentle Obi-Wan shoots him speaks plainly of blame . . . blame that isn’t particularly well deflected by Ferus, who collapses to one side vomiting violently, muttering brokenly of fire and calamity.

 **31.) Vision:** Ferus insists (nearly hysterically, so upset by what he’s seen that he can’t seem to stop shaking) that the Force meant for the boy to drown, describing a horrific vision of a world engulfed in flames and Anakin trying to choke the life out of his Master, the boy’s murderous visage melting into that of a monster in black armor, helmeted in the manner of one of the old Sith Lords, and, though Ferus certainly quite fervently seems to believe that the vision (which came to him as Obi-Wan was breathing life back into the boy) was a warning of things that would come, if Anakin were to live to become a Knight, Tru isn’t entirely convinced that it’s not just his hatred of the boy clouding his judgment, in the end deciding to reserve judgment on Skywalker until he’s had a chance to get to know the former slave at least a little bit better.

 **32.) Coward:** She’s not sure, afterwards, if Obi-Wan actually came down to the part of the training salles used by younglings in the crèche to deliberately seek out Ferus, to try to offer some sort of explanation or excuse or apology or farewell, or if it was just a chance meeting caused by circumstance and the Force – she was looking for Ferus to remind him that they were supposed to meet up with Darra and study for an astrophysics exam and stumbled upon them by accident partway through the encounter and overheard so much, unnoticed by the both of them, that she had trouble looking at either one of them afterwards directly without blushing with embarrassment and shame for her accidental eavesdropping – but when she enters the salle, it’s to find them standing far too close together, Ferus flushed and shaky as though he’s intentionally been pushing himself to the point of collapse and been interrupted about three-fourths of the way to it, the hilt of his deactivated lightsaber clenched tight (to the point that the metal casing creaks ominously under the pressure) in his left hand, right hand stretched out to Obi-Wan, fingers spread wide, palm pressed to the young Knight’s chest just above where his heart beats, Obi-Wan visibly paler than normal as he hesitates, right hand clasped steadyingly on Ferus’ shoulder (fingers clenching a little too hard, visibly digging into the layers of fabric to bite into the joint beneath) and left hand hovering above the hand pressed to his chest, his head bent down close to Ferus’ bowed head, a whisper, "I’m sorry. Come. Once more?" finally breaking the too pregnant silence during which Ferus’ shaking has steadily grown more pronounced, his breathing heavy and far too loud, Ferus almost stumbling as he steps back, thumbing the activation stud on his ’saber so that the bright blue blade thrums to life, Obi-Wan’s answering snap-hiss of activation revealing not a similar blue blade, as it should, but rather the brightly poisonously green blade of his former Master’s lightsaber, the two throwing themselves into a new duel with such violent intensity that even with the Force she can barely track them, Ferus’ every movement somehow all but screaming agony, heartbreak, longing, disappointment, desire, desperation, _love_ , Obi-Wan a blur of grief, sorrow, pain, weariness, sympathy, withdrawal, pulling away with every motion, Ferus chasing desperately after, Tru frozen in the shadows of the open doorway, riveted in place, afraid to move for fear of alerting them to her presence, watching helplessly as, with a keening sob that sounds almost like a scream, Ferus finally throws himself bodily at the Knight, Obi-Wan catching him at the last moment before he can impact the green blade, lightsabers hitting the floor with twinned thumps as Tru backs rapidly away, turning to run, the echoing cry of, _"Why?"_ from Ferus sounding like the soul-wrenching sob of a thwarted suicide, mingling with an indistinct murmur of, "I’m sorry. Ferus, _don’t_. I’m sorry. I can’t," from Obi-Wan even as she takes to her heels, such a coward that she actually claps her hands over her ears to keep from understanding what Ferus says next.

 **33.) Influence:** Tru doesn’t know what Anakin’s said or done to make Obi-Wan believe that Ferus has it out for him and is behind all of the mishaps and accidents he suffers, in the Temple; yet, despite the fact that he knows Ferus dislikes the boy passionately, he honestly doesn’t know if there’s any real reason for Anakin to be concerned, and, either way, he’s never seen someone change opinions about another being as quickly or as completely as Obi-Wan apparently has done about Ferus, going from liking and respecting and going out of his way to visit Ferus to regarding him with suspicion and dislike and thinly veiled hostility (to such a point that Tru sincerely wonders about whether or not Anakin may’ve used the Force – either deliberately on purpose or accidentally – to influence his young Master’s feelings and thoughts on Ferus), which tends to make him think that the boy has to have said _something_ and also to regard everything that comes out of the former slave’s mouth with at least some degree of wariness and skepticism.

 **34.) Project:** For stars’ sakes, the poem is a group project for a class – an assignment meaning nothing but that they’ve been studying so-called postmodernist poets and that they’ve been forced to suffer through so blasted many lectures about humanist tropes and archetypes that their brains are all chock full of stereotypes and symbols and antiheroes and violent unheroic actions and methods of exploding heroic cycles and they’re damned well _tired_ of all of it – it has nothing to do with _anyone_ , much less Anakin Skywalker, and frankly Tru finds the fact that Anakin could possibly be so distraught about it all an indication of a much less stable personality than he’s feared the boy to be in possession of even in his worst nightmares.

 **35.) Control:** Anakin truly is extremely strong in the Force, and frankly Tru finds it more than a little bit disturbing that someone with so much power also has so little personal control, especially when it comes to his emotions and fears.

 **36.) Fit:** She never would have thought that the Chalactan Knight would be the one to become Ferus’ Master (the woman is an admirable Jedi, to be sure, but she’s . . . not soft, exactly, but bland, unremarkable, not powerful enough to handle someone like Ferus, really), so, in a way, she’s not overly surprised when the young woman is killed and Ferus ends up not only being claimed by another, but by none other than Siri Tachi, herself, the woman so famous for storming her way out of the Temple and the Order, rendering Obi-Wan himself unconscious so she could steal a ship (that infamous departure apparently staged to allow her to not only work an extended undercover case, but to work her first solo mission, too, and so earn her Knighthood) and make her way off of Coruscant, her flashiness and temper a much better fit for Ferus, in Tru’s opinion, than Nemaria Tennyai’s unremarkable nature and dull placidity ever could have been.

 **37.) Nervous:** Since Ferus is pretty much no longer welcome to visit or even to wander too closely to Obi-Wan any longer, it falls to his friends to continue to keep an eye on the young Knight, and, to those ends, Tru arranges to (kind of) make friends with Anakin, so he won’t end up being lumped together with Ferus in Obi-Wan’s mind and will therefore be permitted a certain amount of closeness, even though he’s incredibly uncomfortable around Anakin, to begin with, and, even after they’ve become more friendly, never quite entirely manages to forget that the other boy makes him nervous.

 **38.) Off:** Sometimes, he thinks that he almost likes Anakin Skywalker – the boy is smart and clever and not afraid of speaking his mind or of doing what the Force prompts him to do and to hell with possible orders to the contrary – but there is just something about him that feels _off_ , to Tru, something that almost reminds him of his own Master, in a way, a reserve, a disconnect, like the face that Skywalker is showing to the world is false, somehow, a mask or façade to hide the real him, and the sensation that Anakin is very carefully keeping him (and everyone else, too. Everyone except maybe his Master) at arm’s length, refusing to permit any real closeness, bothers Tru so much that, when he stops to think about it, he actually finds himself trusting and liking Skywalker even less than he’d thought he did.

 **39.) Damage:** Afterwards, she’ll wonder if Darra saw something about Anakin that let her know the boy was going to end up being her death, if that was the reason why she never seemed at all comfortable around Anakin and was prone to startling violently whenever he suddenly appeared nearby or otherwise intruded on her senses; at the time, though, he’s far too busy being shocked and angry and aggrieved and blaming himself for the whole awful thing to really be able to think about anything else but that Darra just took the blaster shot meant for Tru (a hit that Tru probably could’ve shrugged off with less than an hour of healing, as long as it hadn’t hit his head or heart directly or done too much damage to his lungs and spine) and that Ferus almost certainly could have helped heal Darra of the damage she’d taken from it – stabilizing her enough to get her to a Healer, at the very least – if only Anakin hadn’t interfered.

 **40.) Stupid:** She’s not sure what drives her to risk visiting Ferus, in the aftermath of Darra’s death and the disastrous report on both the mission and the girl’s death to the High Council and the mass turning on Ferus (proving that the ancient practice of scapegoating is, apparently, still alive and well in the Jedi Order. They couldn’t very well blame their declared Chosen One for the death he caused; someone had to take the blame for Darra’s death, though, and, apparently, Ferus made a better choice than Tru, even though it was the failure of Tru’s lightsaber blade that caused the whole damned incident in the first place) – Ferus was arrogant and foolish (and angry and desperate and _stupid_ ) in the Council Chamber and his banishment from the Jedi Order is a direct reaction to that. He should’ve known better than to flout the rules so at such a moment, and, harsh as it may seem, he’s earned his punishment, thus, though it’s unfair and false to say it’s because of Darra’s death that he’s being sent away, as many are claiming – but she has a bad feeling about Ferus leaving Coruscant under these circumstances (she can’t help but remember the missing second Sith and think about how useful someone as powerful as Ferus would be, to the Sith) and she’s afraid that Ferus believes she’s turned against him and is siding with Anakin, regarding Darra (and the thought of Ferus despising her frankly makes her feel weak and shaky and ill to the point of dizziness), so he takes the risk and she goes up to see him, delivering her reassurance of her continued friendship and loyalty and her warning about the Sith and Ferus’ dangerous unreadiness to be out in the galaxy alone, and she hopes with all her might that it will be enough to help Ferus save himself from any dangers he may encounter outside of the Order.

 **41.) Alien:** It’s just not the same, without Ferus and Darra – there’s no one left from the original age-group to even be friends with, since she’s certainly not going to try to keep any kind of ties with that bastard, Skywalker. Jax Pavan is close to her age, but he’s always been a loner, and besides, that jerk Skywalker seems to have already made a move to secure his friendship by turning him against everyone Tru’s ever really cared about. Everyone else is either older, younger, already in a close-knit group of friends uninterested in adding anyone else to their circle, or too alien to be at all interested in befriending even someone as odd (by human norm standards) as a Teevan – and so she’s glad when her Master decides to use everything that’s happened as an excuse to accelerate her training, since it should at least help to keep her too busy and too tired to grieve or mope overly much.

 **42.) Phase:** For most of the missions she went on before, when they were joint missions, Master Ry-Gaul would try to make sure they happened during a male phase; now that they’re going out alone, though, just the two of them, he’s asked that she phase to female, at least during the beginnings of the missions – females can be distracting and cause others to underestimate them, and being able to phase to male, if necessary, generally both makes it safer for them as a pair and for him as an individual, since many humans and humanoids are less likely to try to take any kind of advantage of a male than a female, and the change in gender changes their overall profile – and so she starts to build up quite a collection of personal clothing specifically meant to be worn at the start of missions, given their attention-grabbing nature.

 **43.) Known:** Most individuals assume that Tholme and his protégés are the sole spies for the Order – as if only a couple of Jedi could ever possibly be enough to keep track of the whole Republic, much less the whole of the known galaxy! – and she finds it both incredibly naïve, on the parts of those people, and oddly reassuring, given that no one hardly ever seems to give a second thought to her or her Master (since, after all, that must surely mean that they must be doing _something_ right, to avoid being noticed!).

 **44.) Evident:** For those who know what to look for (especially for those whose business largely consists of intelligence gathering and surveillance operations), the signs have been evident for years, now – decades, even, really. Long enough that her Master’s own Master began preparatory work on certain contingency plans in the event of an outbreak of civil war, at the urgings of his own Master – and so Tru isn’t at all surprised, when the career politicians of the Republic start making noise about creating a standing military, even though such a thing could inevitably only end up aggravating the Separatists even more than they already are and drive them even closer to the brink of war.

 **45.) Mark:** In all honesty, Jax isn’t a bad fellow – too trusting, perhaps, too liable to take things at face value and jump right in to the thick of a nasty mess, in his haste to help others – and he’s the easiest mark, when it comes to Obi-Wan (he hero-worships the young Knight and he also likes Anakin, having been taken in by his rough charm and superficially earnest good will), so Tru eventually sucks it up (telling himself that pride isn’t very becoming of a Jedi) and makes sure to cultivate a good working relationship with Pavan, if only so he can keep better tabs on Obi-Wan’s activities and his condition, in between missions.

 **46.) Track:** The best way to keep track of Obi-Wan is to combine spy forces – befriend a Healer or three, to keep tabs on injuries; bribe the younglings in the crèche, to keep track of the movements of their heroes, within the confines of the Temple complex; make nice with an ally of Anakin’s, to get an in on the actual details of the missions; and etc. – and she promised Ferus she’d keep track of the Knight and try to make sure he was alright, so that’s precisely what she does, in the end.

 **47.) Instruction:** Master claims it’s easier if the first few times are with paid, guaranteed clean, trustworthy professionals who’re able to teach without instruction other than practical and entirely open to exploring the whole gamut of sensuality and sexuality without making it seem other than an adventure in pleasure and sensation, and Tru trusts his Master’s opinion in the matter, so it’s all arranged via highly trustworthy and professional courtesans from Serenno (Master Ry-Gaul having done a favor once for a vassal of House Dooku) when Tru reaches the age of sixteen years, discovering a not very surprising predilection for tall men (in both genders) and a slightly more surprising tendency to enjoying having multiple simultaneous partners that ends up leading him to often seek to operate on missions within the bounds of a trio.

 **48.) Disguise:** The silver eyes and slight silvery cast to overly white skin are obvious tells, for anyone who knows anything about what a Teevean is, and so they are among the first things she learns to disguise, using a combination of either natural dyes of the type to stain and the Force or else reversible all over molecular tattoos (to give her body an even, tanned golden glow, like that of a human able to occasionally sunbathe or tan in the nude) and deliberately crafted but Force fixed natural pigment until even Healers at the Temple are shocked when they see silver and silvery-white instead of a deep, warm brown and lightly bronzed skin.

 **49.) Avoid:** A special Padawan cut and braid are far too conspicuous for such a clandestine line of work, so she learns how to encourage and regulate the growth/accelerated growth/depressed growth of her hair and how to call on the Force to weaken and sever or strengthen and mold the bonds holding the braid to her roots very quickly, to avoid the indignity and the dangerousness of wigs and false weaves.

 **50.) Wound:** It is neither innate power and abilities nor knowledge and hard won skills that permit her to survive the carnage of the Geonosis killing grounds: it’s her Teeven physiology, rapid regeneration refusing, in the absence of a blow able to sever the head from the rest of the body or an attack ruthless enough to remove all air from the lungs, to permit her to die, even when she deliberately takes a hit from a laser cutting weapon that nearly bisects her (without also fully cauterizing the terrible wound, which makes it extremely messy, not to mention dangerous – Teevans can, after all, faint from blood loss, and even occasionally go into shock if they hemorrhage enough over a short enough period of time – until it closes enough for her to stop losing blood, a process that she has to help along by applying the edge of her own ’saber as carefully as she can to as much of the boundary of the wound as she can, after making sure that nothing from inside of her is hanging outside what she’s holding shut with the one hand while attempting to sear the skin shut with the blade held in the other hand, the process awkward as hell and more painful than almost any other wound she’s survived), just above the natural waist, in order to save the life of Jax Pavan (so that his Master won’t end up having to kill himself to do it), stumbled upon in the midst of the battle and instinctively sheltered, as a useful asset to be preserved against further need.

 **51.) Vain:** With the advent of the war and the sudden desperate need for Jedi commanders and generals bringing all manner of formerly undesirable allies to Coruscant to receive orders and commands, she dares to hope that Ferus will resurface and return to the Order; yet, as months pass with no word, she begins to believe that her warnings were given in vain and fears the worst, finding herself starting to watch the enemy, waiting for a familiar face and form to appear somewhere on the battlefields in black Sith robes.

 **52.) Split:** Her training really isn’t anywhere near complete yet and she damn well knows it, but the Order badly needs young Knights who can be sent out solo to helm missions/battles and desperately needs Masters who can be trusted with the training of new/orphaned apprentices, so, after almost two years of war and a very difficult successful mission, she finds herself summarily Knighted, after which she and her Master are split up, so that the Order and the galaxy can supposedly receive the maximum amount of benefit possible from having them on the Republic’s side, by making sure they’re both fully active on different missions.

 **53.) Tide:** Ready to be Knighted yet or not, sometimes, when the Force takes her, it feels as though she can look out across the whole of creation, into the surging, burning hearts of stars and into souls that remain secret even to their owners, and as if she can hear the very architecture of creation as it fits together, the fiercely triumphant/rejoicing/suffering/struggling/stubborn songs of all living things and the small, scurrying thoughts of the physically bound; yet, sometimes, the very drumbeat of her own heart drowns out all the rest of creation and her eyes, tightly shut, see only black and blotches of red that spray and shift like oil on water, constantly changing patterns, desperation and despair dinning in her like a tide, and she cannot help but wonder what in the name of the Force she is doing, pretending to be a Jedi Knight, when she still cannot even control her own desires.

 **54.) Sense:** She is much stronger in the Living than the Unifying Force – the fact that she is a Teevan all but guarantees that she should be far more in touch with the Living Force, given her ability to rapidly regenerate and to morph genders – so it’s rare for her to be able to peer far enough into the mists of the probable futures to actually _see_ anything concrete of the future most likely to be (all Jedi can see at least a little way into the future – especially in battle – a few heartbeats or a few minutes, enough to anticipate and to block the attacks of enemies, sufficient to know who is and is not going to be dangerous at any given time), unlike Ferus, who often seemed able to sense events far, far into the future, and she has to wonder, sometimes, given how often the Council Masters speak now of the Dark Side shrouding the Force and blocking them whenever they try to look into the tangle of possible pathways that form the potential future, how it is that some can still see so clearly when others cannot.

 **55.) Panic:** Stronger in the Living Force or not, she still sometimes dreams of an evil so vile and all-encompassing that the Temple crumbles to ruin before it and Corsucant burns and whole planets are snuffed out of existence, and wakes in a panic, shaking uncontrollably, visions of a human monster in black armor and a helmet of a sort she recognizes from old holos of Sith warriors from the old Jedi/Sith conflicts (before Revan, even) throwing back his head and laughing while Darkness spreads to engulf the whole of the galaxy, terrified out of her wits, unable to even speak for the terror gripping her, paralyzing her with foreboding.

 **56.) Terrible:** The man who is sometimes in her dreams reminds her of Ferus, looks enough like him to be mistaken for him, at a distance – tall, slim but broad-shouldered, with fair skin and hair dark underneath an uppermost layer streaked with amber-gold, only the green eyes truly distinctly different – and sometimes she’s with him, and he is telling her, "We’ll find a way. I promise you that. One way or another, no matter what may or might not come to pass. We’ll figure out a way to save him," and sometimes he is with Ferus, standing behind him on a glassed-in balcony with a view of stars, Ferus’ broad shoulders bowed, shaking, and he rubs a hand soothingly across that trembling back and whispers, "I’m so sorry. Ferus, I’m _so_ sorry. I’m sure some must have survived – maybe even your friend, Tru. Even the Emperor can’t possibly have gotten them all. We’ll find them. We’ll join forces. We’ll fight. We won’t let those murdering filth get away with this. I promise you. Ferus, I _promise_ you. We’ll find a way to bring the Empire down and make them all pay for what they’ve done. As long as there are those who remain true, the Order will never really die," and, waking, knowing that she’s seen two distinctly different possible futures – one where something terrible is going to happen and one where something unspeakable already has happened – and understanding, instinctively, that it’s Ferus the stranger is speaking of, to her, can’t decide which possibility would be worse, knowing that both are terrible, and wonders if avoiding meeting that green-eyed man could somehow save her (and the galaxy) from ever having to experience either one of the two possibilities . . .

 **57.) Golden:** She is on Coruscant, following up leads on the Sith and the possibility that there might be a connection to the Supreme Chancellor’s office, when the attack on Coruscant leads to the return of the golden boys, the Team, Skywalker and Kenobi, and events quickly come to boil, the plans of the Sith unraveling with such rapidity that, even before she sees footage of the battle at the Senate Rotunda, she’s sure that Obi-Wan, the Chosen One, is _finally_ coming in to his own.

 **58.) Necessary:** She thinks at first that surely, now that Skywalker has admitted to being the Sith’ari, they will finally separate him from the Chosen One, but apparently not, since now the concept of balance is being used to justify having the two together, as if their personal balance of Light and Dark is somehow necessary to the health and perpetuation of the Force and the galaxy.

 **59.) Love:** It isn’t so much that she has anything against love – the Order has been floundering, has been _failing_ , more and more obviously since the Ruusan Reformations, and restructuring the Order so that it is more like the old Jedi Order, prior to all of the conflicts with the Sith, most likely can only be a good thing, in the long run, given how the Order flourished in those years, especially when compared to the slow but steady withering it has been suffering since Ruusan. More, it’s fairly obvious, now that they’re no longer trying to hide or deny it or pretend that it’s something it’s not (that they are beings they are not), that Obi-Wan and Anakin are either deeply in love or else so obsessed with one another that there’s just no separating out co-dependency from simple attachment/desire/infatuation. And, to be absolutely fair, if she had a chance to be with her best beloved (if Ferus would only come _home_ ), she would snap that chance up in an instant, without even so much as pausing to think, first, so it isn’t like she can protest about the arrangement between the two Jedi without coming off as a hypocrite – so much as it is that she seriously, strenuously objects to the fact that suddenly Obi-Wan and Anakin are being touted as the most romantic couple in all the ’verse when for so many years they were just Master and Apprentice, just two members (two brothers, even!) of the Jedi Order, nothing more and nothing less, not some grandly tragic couple barred from being together by the rules of the Order and their own consciences but instead engaged in a (deliberately structured by the Order so as to be purely platonic, if in some ways almost familial) Master-Padawan relationship that’s about the furthest that it’s possible to get from a romantic pairing without actually venturing into the territory of individuals who actively dislike/loathe one another, the sudden, almost violent over-romanticizing of the couple bothering her on an almost soul-deep level.

 **60.) Save:** She keeps hoping that Ferus will use the General Recall as an excuse to come home again . . . right up until she discovers his name on a list of Sidious’ personal recruits, and knows that she’s not only going to have to find the strange green-eyed man from her dreams but that they’ll have to track him down and save him from himself, after all . . .

　

　

　

　

　


	2. The New Hero’s Face

Mid Rim Contemporary Culture - Advanced Seminar

**The New Hero’s Face**

By: Ferus Olin; Darra Thel-Tanis; Tru Veld

　

_Pour the dream. Speak_

_in myth. Pen words of story to call the hero:_

_transfigure life._

 

There is no more luxury for modernism. It is out of the question: there is no schizophrenic euphoria, only hard truths

(thoughts)

leaking out of shadowed corners.

 

 _For tragedy, one must have a hero with a_ fatal flaw _that will cause his_ fall _, guided by the hand of_ fate _._

 _For tragedy, one must have_ empathy _._

 _For tragedy, one must have_ destiny _._

 _For tragedy, one must have_ love _and_ betrayal _, but above all, there must be_ death _. No, above all, there must be a_ story _._

Words shape

(distort)

what is real. By capturing the truth in words it changes.

(We are all shoved into the spaces between the lines.)

Words have power. Words can carve

(change)

create

(cheat)

solidify a hero out of pure need.

 

Fight not with fate:

ask no questions:

it’s how the story goes.

 _(How it_ must _go.)_

Be happy:

walk alone:

die their champion

when they scream for blood.

 _(Sacrifice – destiny – darling –_ hero _!)_

Create your chains, as

_(mirror mirror O mirror)_

their need creates

_(shapes)_

you.

 

"O my darling child, you are beautiful."

_Your soul is a temptation._

 

There is no need for fiction. Not in this.

Dissolution is delightfully easy.

There is bone

there is broken glass

there is lying

(phantasmal thoughts)

and no perfect endings.

 

_This is the way the story goes. The rules bind like ropes._

 

Click.

 

and the hero in the story, the bloodstained cloaked stranger with dark(bright) eyes and full

whirl of cape flapping, with soft mouth and iron jaws and a voice too light(dark) to

remember or forget, he heard the hitching shrill and turned back, shining

 

Click.

 

To escape, all one must do

_(I defy. I am!)_

is choose to break

_(the soul caught alight)_

the law.

 

( . . . )

 

 _The only guarantee is balance_ but

 _balance can_ shift _._

 

All things end

_(say die and I will die; say die and watch me die)_

we all fall down

_(bang bang you hit the ground)_

not with a bang but a whimper.

 

Heroes die, you see?

 

_(Myths that are believed in tend to become true.)_

 

Heroes die again (and again) and again.

 

The trick –

_(Click.)_

The trick –

**(Click.)**

The trick is transmutation by words to

_(freedom)_

transformation

_(metamorphosis)_

resurrection

_(creation)_

the consumption of death –

_(death, thou shalt die)_

for change is ownership.

_(Self-realization.)_

 

( . . . )

 

(You hit the ground, darling. I think

you just died, sweetheart.)

 

Bang.

 

**Bang.**

 

_(Laughter.)_

(Dreams.)

 

_Perhaps this is victory, too._

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warning:** This story functions as a sort of compressed codex for Tru’s life, as the Teevan has been written (or at least referred to) and is going to be written in my not even nearly complete AU **Star Wars** series **_You Became to Me_**. If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to ask! There are some things I can’t elaborate on much more, for fear of at least partially spoiling some stories still in the works, but I realize that such a radical retelling of some parts of EU history could be somewhat confusing, so I invite questions from readers who’re puzzled and/or curious!
> 
>  **Clarification Notes:** **1.)** Again, the group project “poem” Darra, Ferus, and Tru write will be included at the back of this piece, as it will with the stories I intend to write for Ferus and have written already for Darra. Certain lines may sound familiar to readers, as they are taken from certain modern and contemporary pieces, to give the “joke” authenticity. **2.)** One of the reasons why my AU **Star Wars** series _**You Became to Me**_ is so entirely not even nearly complete has to do with the fact that I really started writing at the wrong end of the prequel trilogy for an AU (in my defense, though, when I started what became my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, which is over a million words long, I thought I was doing a sort of one-shot fix-it based on an idea I got for "fixing" RotS by changing something that happens very near the end of James Luceno's EU novel _Labyrinth of Evil_ , which is set immediately prior to RotS). One of these days, I fully intend to rectify that problem by going back and starting from the beginning, with an AU rewrite of TPM, which is why I took the time to do a character study sketch for a supporting character like Tru. In addition to playing a more prominent role in stories planned as sequels for my _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ trio, s/he'll be showing up again, probably in a more prominent role, either whenever I get around to that AU rewrite of TPM or get around to following up on that AU rewrite of TPM with more stories. Folks might want to keep that in mind when reading this, since technically this is spoilerish for more than one AU novel/story that I haven't gotten around to writing yet! **3.)** I'm not entirely sure I need to say this, but the notion that Teevans have five distinct genders common to their particular kind of near-human was very likely inspired, at least in part, by my recollection of the gender metamorph near-human androgynes (who have gender identities and sexual urges only once a month) in Ursula K. Le Guin's sci-fi feminist classic _The Left Hand of Darkness_. Also, it's entirely possible that I was thinking about both the shapeshifting Face Dancers (a servant caste of the Bene Tleilax) in Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi classic series **_Dune_** and the radical regeneratives or "rads" in Orson Scott Card's novel _A Planet Called Treason_ \- or _Treason_ , as it was renamed and republished after being heavily revised, in the version that I believe I read, though I'd have to ask my mom to be sure, since it was her copy of the book that I actually read - (a fascinating if, as I seem to recall, somewhat disturbing sci-fi novel I read once, as a teenager) when I first decided that Teevans should also be rapid regenerates and that their mutated cousins from the moon Kamelyon should be outright shape-shifters.


End file.
